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Tuesday, September 16, 2014

What's It To You? - Four Sons Walked Into Paradise part 8

For those of you who just can't get
enough of the subtleties of biblical Hebrew, here is another stab at
answering the question we raised earlier.

Here's the problem in brief:

The M'chilta determines
that the one who asks 'What is this service to you' is the
Evil Son.

They know he is evil because by
saying 'to you' he excludes himself from obligation and the
wider community.

The M'chilta understands
that the one who asks the question “What are these testimonies,
etc., that the Lord our God commanded you” is the Wise Son.

So, why is the Wise Son not also
considered Evil? After all, he also seems to exclude himself by
saying that 'you' are commanded, implying that he is not.

In
contrast to the approach of Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffmann that I brought
in the previous two posts, I bring you now the approach of Rabbi
Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, author of a commentary on the Torah
called הכתב והקבלה (Hact'av
v'Hakabbalah, literally
'the writing and the tradition').
Rabbi Mecklenburg along with certain rabbis of his time (mid 19th
century), notably Rabbi MeïrLeibush ben Yehiel Michel Weiser (known popularly
by his acronym MaLBiM),
sought to show the harmony between straightforward (p'shat)
reading of Tanach and the midrashim
of the Talmudic Sages.

In his commentary to
Deuteronomy 6:20, the Wise Son's question, he raises our question.
His answer is to point out the distinction between the use of the
word לכם(to you), which the Evil Son
uses, and the word אתכם (you) which
the Wise Son uses.

A brief grammar lesson:
In Hebrew, the word אל is the stand
alone word meaning 'to.' However, the word used for 'to' is usually
the prefix ל which can be put in front of
a pronoun ending. An example is, of course, the word לכם
which is effectively short for אל אתם (to
you).

The word את
usually doesn't have meaning by itself; rather, it comes to
indicate an object of a verb. It sometimes means 'with' and that
meaning will come into play here.

R. Mecklenburg notes that
when the word לכם (to you), or any of
its variants, is used with the verb צוה
(command) it means 'to you alone to the exclusion of others.'
The prime example he brings is:

Numbers
Chapter 9
(8) And Moses said to them, “Wait and I will hear that which the
Lord will command to you.”

The
context here is that some people had been ritually impure at the time
of the celebration of the Passover. The law had already been given
that one who is ritually impure cannot partake of the Passover
offering. Likewise, one who doesn't eat of the Passover offering is
liable for the supreme Divine punishment of car'et.
It's
not clear what exactly car'et
is. It literally means 'cut off.' What we know is that it is really
bad and you don't want to get this punishment in particular.

So
these people who were impure were a little worried about what would
happen to them for not having had the Passover meal. They asked Moses
what to do. His initial reply was the verse quoted above.

He was
saying 'I will ask God what you
are commanded to do – not me or anyone else, because the rest of us
already had our Passover meal.'

In the Wise Son's question, he uses the word אתכם.
Whereas לכם is exclusive, אתכם
is not exclusive. In fact, despite the third person pronoun
ending (you, plural), it could be understood to read 'with you.'

Thus, the verse would be saying 'What are the testimonies and the
statutes and the judgments that the Lord our God commanded (me) with
you.'

Even without interpreting אתכם to mean
'with you,' it is still not exclusive in the same way as לכם.

This reading, to my mind, is very reasonable, fits in well with other
verses in the Torah and would serve as a strong indication to Chazal
that, indeed, there is a big difference in the way the Wise Son asks
and the way the Evil Son asks.

Even though Rabbi Mecklenburg indicates that the word לכם
is exclusive in conjunction with the word צוה
(command), we find that the Sages generally interpret לכם
and its variants (לי, לך
וכדומה) as exclusive, not only in the context of
commands.

Moreover, the form is understood to mean not just 'to you' but 'for
you.' In our case, we could translate the Evil Son's question to read
“What is this service for you?” meaning “What benefit do you
derive from this service?” This sounds even more like a taunt as it
implies that the Evil Son himself discerns no particular benefit.

An example of the ל form implying 'for
your benefit' is God's first command to Abraham:

2 comments:

Last time I agreed that the Rasha was evil and the Chochom good, but not on the basis of the use of the prepositional phrase "to you," but rather based on the psychology of a guy who asks about all the details versus a guy who says "What's it to you?" in a voice that seems to me to be sarcastic.

Today, you have additional nuance based on the difference between LACHEM and ETCHEM. I don't have the Hebrew language skills to discern the difference. I "hear" it now that you've told me, but I'm not sure if I would have "heard" it before.

The interesting thing about R. Mecklenburg's point is that he is using a method of analysis (a kind of statistical analysis) that is strikingly parallel to a story I recently heard on NPR called: Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests. The story had to do with the statistical analysis of non-content little words like pronouns, prepositions, articles, and so forth and how differences in how they are used can reveal things about the speaker that may not be understood from the content words.

The implication of the NPR story is that the "hidden" meaning of a statement could be at odds with the overt meaning. But I think that what you are saying here is that the "hidden" meanings of the Rasha and the Chochom statements are congruent with what I called the psychological meaning in response to your last post.

Here is the link to the NPR article:http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/09/01/344043763/our-use-of-little-words-can-uh-reveal-hidden-interests?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

Yes, I heard that interview! I think your observation is in relating to this topic is spot on. I hadn't considered that particular relationship before but it seems to fit in. Another point, which I believe I brought up in an earlier post and will bring up again, is that the Evil Son is literally making a statement וְהָיָ֕ה כִּֽי־1יֹאמְר֥וּ אֲלֵיכֶ֖ם בְּנֵיכֶ֑ם whereas the Wise and Tam Sons are asking a question.